A Wilted Crown O'Daisies On My Flower Child's Mind
by M. Night Wolfalona
Summary: Continuing my "After the Last Mystery" series with Velma's view on the break-up. No one ever really saw her emotions run wild; see them do so now. Especially for a certain grown-up flower child/beatnik... Shelma hints, please R&R. Enjoy.


**Hello yet again my crazy cougars (rrrrroooOOOOOWWOOOoooh). I have decided to continue my series of oneshot/drabbles (aka the "After the Last Mysteries" series) about how the gang all felt after the break-up in the movie. **

**I've done some Fraphne stories; now heeeeeeeeere's Shelma!! First up: Velma (I think.) How did she feel about all this? And did she have feelings for a certain beatnik we all know and love? (possibly so, yes). Let's find out! So long! Oh, and YAY! for me for having written and published THREE (3) stories on here in TWO (2) little DAYS! WHOOOOOOH!**

**DISCLAIMER: It's obvious I don't own them, so DON'T JUDGE ME!! Waaaaaahh...**

**Please R&R! Or I'll set Scrappy Doo on all of you! So there!  
Toodles!  
Wolfy**

Velma hated it when she cried. It made her glasses fog up so badly that she couldn't see a thing.

And she hated it when she couldn't see what was right in front of her.

How had this happened? She thought as she sat in her car, one that she had only just gotten the license to; even though she was a few months shy of being 16, the board had allowed her to get her license early, so that she could get to her IB college classes at the exclusive Coolsville University of Academics and Fine Arts during her high school hours. Skipping two grades had an advantage.

But that wasn't her primary thought as she sat, hunched over the steering wheel, in her battered and beaten-up old 1976 Vista Cruiser, whose dull brown color seemed to match her own image: bland and blending into the background, while the other, prettier cars get all of the attention. It was her entire life gathered into one simple conclusion:

If you're not pretty or athletic, then you get no attention. And no one to be there for you when you fall.

It was strange, how the subject of driving and cars seemed to be stuck on her mind tonight. The bespectacled girl had no idea why, either. But maybe if she just let her thoughts wander, she could figure out why.

It was strange; just how much each person was like their car, she thought. She, bland and inconspicuous; Fred, powerful and demanding attention; Daphne, small, pretty, and easy to steal; and Shaggy, colorful and bright, but bizarre, and yet familiar, all at once.

Shaggy. He was the only one who really understood her in the gang. He had always been there for her, always willing to lend a shoulder to cry on if it was needed, always willing to cancel whatever plans he had just to be with her if she felt lonely. He was just as abused as she was, and yet he still wore a smile on his face. How was it possible for him to not care about whether or not he got attention from the press in each mystery? Was it because he didn't like the press? Or maybe just the fact that he would do or give up anything, as long as he was with his friends.

And it was with that thought, and a small, choked sob, that Velma realized what she had done.

He had tried so hard in his own way to keep the gang together. True, it was an unorthedox manner of a metaphorical meaning, his description; but it was sweet, and heartfelt, if nothing else. All he had wanted to do was try to stop the bickering, the fighting, the arguing that had spiraled into...this.

When she had said that he had made a good point, he had smiled such a sweet smile, an innocent, trusting, naive smile that it had almost made her heart break into a million insignificant pieces. He had thought that he had made a difference in the situation, stopped the fighting even.

He had looked so happy to see the fighting stop. Oh, why hadn't she said something else? Something _other _then those two fateful and destructive words that had had such a drastically destructive domino effect? She had looked him straight in the eyes, him so naive, so sweetly smiling, and had spoken the last words that anyone had _ever _wanted to hear:

"I quit."

When she had tearfully spoken those two fateful words, the smile had fallen from his face faster then anyone there could blink. He had stared at her, unbelieving, his eyes almost tearful, she had thought. He had whispered a word himself, one that just shattered her heart as he spoke it.

"No."

He had gazed into her eyes, with such sadness, such disbelief, that she had instantly regretted speaking at all, lest of all those two words. She had barely heard Fred and Daphne announce their "retirement" as well. Staring into those big pitiful puppy dog brown eyes, she wasn't aware of anything else. All Velma wanted to do at that moment was to hold him, stroke his hair, grab him and kiss him and comfort him from everything that was happening around them that was too fast for anyone's liking.

But all she could do was stare.

Until it finally became too much for her to handle.

And she ran.

Ran away from everything that was happening much too fast for her liking.

And ran away from the bravest member of the gang that was suffering worst of all.

And as Velma sat there, sobbing in her car, her beat-up, old brown sedan of a car, she wished more then ever that she were not in need of comforting, that she were not being comforted or wanting to be comforted at all. Instead, she wished--more then ever--that she had stayed with the young man, no more then a boy in so many ways, more then she could ever count. His innocent nature, his smiles, his big puppy dog eyes, his kindness and generosity. His expressions, his laughter. All had such an innocent way about them.

And she had shattered it all in just a few precious seconds.

And it was here that she wished--no, _longed_-- that she could hold him, comfort him, kiss him and make everything well in the world again. She longed to snuggle up to him, to hide away from the world with him, and to never emerge from there. And she longed to breathe in his sandalwood smell, tangle her fingers into his longer-then-average hair the color of a lion's mane (ironically), and gaze into his beautiful puppy dog eyes, so many different shades of red and brown and gold and even green and blue at times; and kiss him softly on his semi-chapped lips, over and over and over again until both sets were black and blue.

But thanks to those two words, those two, unbelievably stupid words, that would not happen. Not now, not then, not ever (again?).

She sat there in the parking lot, everyone having long since left the factory, and she remembered a time when everything was so much simpler, and no one argued about such stupid little things, simply because there was nothing _to _argue about. She thought of one particular memory which brought a sweet, but brief, smile upon her face.

It was of when she was eight years old, and Shaggy was only ten; it had been a beautiful Saturday afternoon in May. Fred and Daphne were both sick with hay fever, and she had been so lonely, and so bored, so Shaggy had decided to cheer her up by taking her over to the clubhouse was being built. The two had gotten lost, and had been exploring the woods when they had come across it.

It was the most beautiful field of flowers, of almost every single flower that Velma could name (at that age, of course). They had spent hours there, such blissful and sweetly silent hours just sitting there, picking flowers and making chains of flowers, such endlessly pretty and sweetly-scented chains of flowers. Back then he'd been such a flower child, such a hippie, with little interest in jazz save for Frank Sinatra. She remembered the two of them dancing in the field so wildly, and so freely, to music that no one else could hear but the two of them, swirling wildly among the dozens of flowers, while chains of daisies hung, lightly entwined in their hair as they spun, until they had finally collapsed in a heap into the multitude of soft petals and sweet and delicate scents, laughing as they held on another, and drifted off into a dreamland that could never have been as beautiful as the field had been that day. When they had finally woken from their slumber, they had headed home wearily; when they went back to look for the field the next day, they couldn't find it, to their disappointment.

But they would always have the memory with them for the troubling years to come.

Oh, if only life had stayed that way, so peaceful, so perfect! But it hadn't; life almost never stayed the way it was supposed to stay. It just wasn't natural.

And as tears slipped quietly down her face, she almost instinctively knew that Shaggy was crying, too. She didn't know how, or where, but she certainly knew why. She knew it was her fault that he was crying at all.

Velma knew that she had caused tears in those puppy dog eyes.

And that only made her cry more.

In the distance, a lone dog howled, and Velma knew it was Scooby Doo. Soon after, she heard another one echo throughout the valley in which Coolsville laid so snugly, so peacefully in contrast to the events of that night. But this one was stronger, sadder, more heartbreaking then Scooby's was even capable of being. With a sudden gasp, she knew who it was, and she cried even harder into her orange-sweatered arms, her slim shoulders shaking with some still-suppressed sobs.

Her puppy was crying out into the night.

And she could only sit there and sob as Shaggy's pleas for love and attention went unanswered in the last remaining light of of that dreadful night.

They were both alone, both abandoned, both in need of each other more then they ever had. Both in need of a crown of daisies to brighten up their night.

But a rift and a valley stood between them.

She didn't have the strength to cross it.

And the flowers had all gone away.

**Okay, so what do you guys think? Review and tell me, or I'll set Scrappy on you. That's a promise (growls threateningly) **

**This is continuing with what I call the 'After the Last Mystery' series, based on the break-up in the live-action movie. Just how did the gang feel after that? What was going through their heads? And how did they get to that stage in the first place? This includes my other two stories, 'My Knight in Big-Headed Armor' and 'My Leading Lady in Go-Go Boots', so check 'em out, why don't'cha, and review them too please!**

**Each of these stories will have a coupling in them, most likely Fraphne and Shelma, but if you guys want me to do something else, just review and tell me so. **

**So Please Review!  
Toodles again!  
Wolfy**


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